hurrah! We actually managed to cook two lamb chump chops on the gas barbie on saturday, while curing our brinkman smoker at the same time. It took me ages to clean the gas grill though, I don't think we can have cleaned it after the last time we used it, as it was all mouldy and disgusting.

Weather permitting (or maybe even if it rains) we're going to be trying out smoking brisket on saturday. I can't wait!

I have a large piece of brisket in the smoker now, unfortunately covered by my fishing umbrella as it keeps raining, but the temperature seems to be pretty stable. Last night I rubbed it in a bbq rub we picked up in dallas and I'm mopping it every half hour with a sauce of beer (some scottish ale and some san miguel, chillis, onion, pepper, garlic and some more of the rub) it smells bloody gorgeous so far.

That brisket sounds amazing. Sounds like your entire neighborhood should be salivating!

We finally got the gas grill scrubbed up yesterday late and grilled some fresh kielbasa today for lunch. The plan is to grill the asparagus we got at the farmer's market this morning for brunch tomorrow (I'm also going to try for a hollandaise, along with waffles, berry compote, and chiccarones. Probably some bacon too.)

it was good, but not fal apart enough for my liking, next time I do it for 8 hours , not 6. The ribs that I did alongside it were great though, especially the ones that were lower in the bbq, next time the brisket gets done down there. Pictures to follow, I got a lovely smoke ring

that's the brisket cut, nicely across the grain, managed to get a good smoke ring too, the meat wasn't fall apart tenderthough, maybe cos it only got about 6 hours, possibly because it wasn't a very fatty cut.

I'm pretty new to the whole bbq game myself (apart from grilling of course) but Brinkmann seem a reliable name (that's what mine is, but labelled up by bass pro shops), I have read articles saying that electric smokers don't give quite the same taste, but what they lack in charcoal they'll more than make up for with ease of control and temperature regulation.

We did a pork shoulder this weekend - 3 hours on the smoker and an hour wrapped in foil in the oven, very tender but not quite pull-apart tender - I need to make a few tweaks to our kit (drill holes in the fire tray for extra ventilation) so I can get a higher temperature. Tasted great though - pics to follow

It's time to whip out the Weber and get my smoke on. I'm going to start with some Vaguely Vietnamese Baby Backs -- I don't have a bucher in Switzerland yet, but I do at the place in Austria, and he's always psyched to learn new (to him) cuts.

Also Porkpie, some advice a year later -- you don't want to smoke hotter -- your briskit would have been better if you'd left it in another hour or so. Briskit is a lean cut, and an absolute bastard to get right.

We keep postponing, because it keeps raining! This year I'm going to try turning the grill into a hot smoker. Either that or finally splurge on that cold/hot electric smoker I've been lusting after. I'm trying to rationalize the electric one by offering to smoke the salmon catch for Columbia river fishermen, though I should probably practice before potentially ruining some poor guy's hard-earned catch.

If you're splurging, get a horizontal barrel smoker/barbeque pit. I'm still happy with the big Weber, but as word of my BBQ skillz gets out, I'm starting to think of making/having one of these made -- the ones I've seen for sale in Europe are way overpriced and not well made.

Actually, speaking of Europe, does anyone know a website where various (American) cuts of meat are pictured and explained? What Austrians call "spare ribs", for example, are mini riblets, and I fear explaining briskit without pictures.

anyone have any tips on how to get woodchips to smoke while using a propane grill? I've tried the weber-reccommended method of soaking mesquite chips and then wrapping them in tinfoil with some puncture holes to release the smoke, but they barely make any smoke... should i ignore the protocol and skip the soaking?

also, anybody have any good veggie ideas for the grill? my standbys are corn still the husk, soaked for an hour or so in cold water, and asparagus or eggplant marinated in a little oil and garlic + kosher salt... nice and easy but getting a little dull.

When I had a gas grill, I cooked on the left half, and put a pan with soaked chips on the lowest shelf on the right half. Experiment with flame settings and how long they have to be on the grill before they start smoking...

If you like mushrooms, grilled portobello caps with a brush of olive oil + salt & pepper are great.

What I'm trying is a small cast iron pan (like, a little bigger than an ashtray). In theory, it will sit on the grate, on the hotter side of the grill, filled with damp mesquite or apple or something sawdust, smoking away - while on the cooler side of the grill the meat will sit.

I think beets, rutabagas, and parsnips would grill up nicely, though they would take longer than asparagus.

Soaked wood smokes more, so don't skip the soaking. You could skip the tin foil pouch and just put the soaked wood chips straight on the burner -- the foil pouch is more for the sake of neatness than anything else. It's also possible that the cooking temperature you want to use is too low to get smoke happening -- in that case, preheat it as hot as it will go, get the pouch smoking, and then lower to your desired cooking temperature.

Green beans work nicely -- you need to build little rafts with bamboo skewers to keep 'em from falling in, but the results are good. Peppers are a standby at our house -- get them nice and burned on each side, skin them, make a yummy salad. Tomatoes are nice as well -- slice them in half, put the cut side on the grill first, then flip them and season the open side with oil and garlic (and parmesan, maybe).

I did my first beer-can chicken of the year on Saturday -- it's the closest thing to fool-proof that I know in grilling. Rub bird, shove half-filled beercan up bird, place in smokey barbeque for an hour and a half. Gorgeous. We've got a good supply of plum wood, which is nice -- heavier smoke flavor than most fruit trees, but lighter than hickory.

When Katrina blew down our hickory tree, I called a dozen different barbecue places asking them if they wanted the wood -- nobody was interested. It wound up as landfill for some property being developed. :-((((

We kept two 18" slabs from down near ground level. Diameter, probably 3' or so. (They're too big for me to pick up by myself.) Judy had some vague notions about using them in a craft or landscape project, but I may appropriate them for the grill.

I'm trying my Rube Goldberg gas grill smoker conversion today and it appears to be working superbly. One 6" square cast iron pan, filled initially with dry hickory shavings, set on the hot side of the grill (which has 2 independent burners) while the meat (pork country ribs) is on the rack above the cool side of the grill. I've got a foil pan on the grill under the meat, so the fat doesn't drip down where it shouldn't.

I started the hot side of the grill on high for about 10 minutes, with the smoker pan on it, until things started smelling of smoking hickory goodness. Then, I turned the heat down and put the meat and drip pan in place, and used a wad of foil to block the hot-side lid vent. After 20 minutes, I added some damp shavings to the smoker pan, just to keep things going. I figure I'll check every 20-30 minutes for a few hours. It's smelling pretty amazing at the moment.

I never wait 'til May anyway, but did less winter bbqing this year than usual (nothing after Christmas, when I did my smoked bacon and egg bagel sammiches) because of health and master's thesis issues. But beautiful weather today, and it was time, so: had a bunch of char (freshwater fish similar to trout but a little finer in flavor and bigger as well) and stuffed them with chopped up bacon that I had fried with the Scarborough Fair herbs (in a 3-3-1-1 ratio), some Old Bay and butter; coated them with the herby butter and bacon grease mixture, and smoked them with a mixture of oak and plum wood at 250F for a little over a half hour (basting with the herb buttergrease once at the halfway point). Oh man. Ohmanohmanohman. Will do this again, especially as I erred on the side of caution and took the fish off maybe 5 minutes too early (better than 5 minutes too late!)